Abstract
Abstract Snow depth on sea ice is an Essential Climate Variable and a major source of uncertainty in satellite altimetry-derived sea ice thickness. During winter of the MOSAiC Expedition, the “KuKa” dual-frequency, fully polarized Ku- and Ka-band radar was deployed in “stare” nadir-looking mode to investigate the possibility of combining these two frequencies to retrieve snow depth. Three approaches were investigated: dual-frequency, dual-polarization and waveform shape, and compared to independent snow depth measurements. Novel dual-polarization approaches yielded r2 values up to 0.77. Mean snow depths agreed within 1 cm, even for data sub-banded to CryoSat-2 SIRAL and SARAL AltiKa bandwidths. Snow depths from co-polarized dual-frequency approaches were at least a factor of four too small and had a r2 0.15 or lower. r2 for waveform shape techniques reached 0.72 but depths were underestimated. Snow depth retrievals using polarimetric information or waveform shape may therefore be possible from airborne/satellite radar altimeters.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e2023GL104461 |
Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
Volume | 50 |
Issue number | 20 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISSN | 0094-8276 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Keywords
- Sea ice
- Snow
- Radar
- Altimetry
- Polarimetric
- Climate